French soccer team PSG scores on shirt sales with Beckham

French soccer club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) saw sales of its official replica shirts soar by over 60 percent in the 2012-2013 season, a feat largely attributable to David Beckham.

According to Le Figaro newspaper, PSG sold over 400,000 shirts during its 2012-13 season, a record for the club, beating its southern rival, l'Olympique de Marseille,for the first time in over a decade.

David Beckham proved his selling power once again as the player who sold the most shirts for the club during the season, despite playing for the club for less than four months. The English player, who joined the club in January for 4 million euros ($5.30 million), declined to sign for another year and retired after the season ended in May. He left the club on a high note, after it won its first French Championship title in 19 years.

However, shirt sales from French clubs remain far behind those of other European teams.Both Manchester United and Real Madrid sold an annual average of 1.4 million shirts globally between 2007 and 2012. French clubs remain conspicuously absent from lists of those with best-selling strips, while clubs from Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy are all present.